Prenda Law made millions pioneering a bold new model of mass-copyright litigation, suing thousands over alleged BitTorrent downloads of porn movies. Today, its business has ground to a halt. The lawyers behind the "porn trolling" operation have already been ordered to pay more than a half-million dollars in sanctions in various cases, and two judges have asked law enforcement agencies to take a look at Prenda's activities.

Now, another $11,758 sanction has been piled on top of that total, and it's the first sanction that doesn't involve Prenda's questionable copyright lawsuits. Rather, the newest sanction concerns one of Prenda's most audacious moves—a defamation lawsuit it filed last year over online criticism calling the lawyers behind Prenda "assclowns" and "brain-dead," among other epithets.

Yesterday's order comes after US District Judge John Darrah found earlier that Prenda lawyer Paul Duffy had lied to the court about what happened regarding serving a complaint in another district. "To fabricate what a federal judge said in a ruling before another court falls well outside the bounds of proper advocacy and demonstrates a serious disregard for the judicial process," wrote Darrah in February.

In the new order, Darrah finds that the $400 per hour billing rate for defense counsel was reasonable. However, he cut their fee request by more than half. The case moved between different courts, and Darrah decided to only fine Prenda for its misconduct in his Chicago-based court, not for 2013 activities that took place in the Southern District of Illinois.

The award is one of eight known monetary sanction awards against Prenda and its principals. Three smaller fee awards have been paid, while two larger sanction awards are being appealed.

Punishment for “sophistry”

The order of sanctions in this case has been a long time coming. The judge said Prenda's drawn-out allegations that it didn't receive proper service of legal papers were mere legal "sophistry." That defense was also undercut by a voicemail that Prenda-linked lawyer John Steele had left for defendant Paul Godfread. "I understand that you just got served," Steele said, just one hour after Godfread had been served.

Defense lawyer Erin Russell presented the voicemail to the court in her September motion for sanctions (PDF). "As usual, John Steele shot his mouth off," she told Ars in February.

The lawsuit alleged that Paul Godfread and his client Alan Cooper, John Steele's former housekeeper, were engaged in Internet defamation together with critics on the anti-troll blogs like DieTrollDie and Fight Copyright Trolls.

The ending to Prenda's foray into suing bloggers for defamation comes at an interesting time. Fight Copyright Trolls, one of the same blogs that Steele and Duffy sued over, is in the cross-hairs of another mass-copyright plaintiff, porn studio Malibu Media.

Malibu, which has sued more than 1,300 Internet users over allegations of illegal BitTorrent downloading, hasn't sued for defamation—yet. But Malibu's lawyer did call the founder and chief blogger of the site, who goes by Sophisticated Jane Doe (SJD), the leader of a "fanatical Internet hate group" engaged in "inciting violence" against the owners of Malibu.

After seeing through the attack by Prenda, SJD is less worried about the new threat from Malibu.

"I was a little nervous in the beginning," SJD said earlier this week. "Then, carefully reading this stuff, I see how weak and twisted their arguments are."